UFO sightings were up five-fold in 1996... this could be a case of Mulder and ScullyAugust 17, 2009Mail Online

It was the year in which television's The X-Files fuelled conspiracy theories and the film Independence Day chilled cinema-goers with visions of an alien invasion.

But in 1996 the little green men and their strange flying craft weren't just seen on screen.

At least, not according to hundreds of Britons.

A photo of an unidentified flying object, supplied by Denis Plunkett from Bristol. The pensioner dedicated his life to tracking UFOs and founded the world's oldest UFO society

Government 'X- files', released today, show that in 1996 the number of reported sightings of unidentified flying objects soared.David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson as Special Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully

The truth is out there: David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson as Special Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully

As Will Smith heroically defended Earth from an alien attack in Independence Day and Mulder and Scully set out to prove 'the truth is out there' in The X-Files, here in Britain the number of UFO sightings leapt from 117 to 609.

Last night Dr David Clarke, a UFO expert and journalism lecturer at Sheffield Hallam University who has studied the files, said: 'I think there has got to be some kind of connection - it was a year when people were absolutely obsessed with UFOs and aliens.

Aside from 1996, one of the busiest years for UFO sightings reported to the MoD over the past half century was 1978 - the year Close Encounters of the Third Kind was released.

'Obviously, films and TV programmes raise public awareness of UFOs and it's fascinating to see how that appears to lead more people to report what they see to the authorities.'

Details of some of the sightings have been released, as part of a three-year project between the Ministry of Defence and The National Archives.

In 1996 The X-Files was at the height of its popularity. Launched in 1993 ratings for the show mushroomed as it swung from cult viewing to mainstream hit.

In 1997 the number of reported sightings dropped slightly, but remained high at 425, but in 1998 they dropped back to 193.

The reports from 1996 included a sighting from a young man who told police he had seen a UFO hovering over a cemetery in Cheshire before it fired burning laser beams into the ground.